WEBVTT
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Hey there, it's good to have you back.
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This is Stage Sharp with Rage Relief, where digital strategy meets the messy reality of building real products.
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Really glad you're here.
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So let's say hello to FPHE, a new four-letter term one industry veteran thinks might be PLM's successor.
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Or we'll let him make the case.
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In this episode, we're joined again by Doug McDonald.
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He's back for round two to talk about his new report that he published and the term he coined with it, FPHE, the future platform of hardware engineering.
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Let's jump in.
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Welcome back, everybody, to Stay Sharp and Digital Engineering, the podcast about all things digital related to products from engineering to manufacturing, service, and more.
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I'm one of your hosts, Julianne Grant, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Jonathan Scott.
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Hey everybody, good to be back.
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Hey, Jonathan.
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Well, good, always good to be back here.
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Absolutely.
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And continuing on this topic.
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Looking forward to it.
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Yes, yes.
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So, anyway, looking forward to this conversation today.
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It is a follow-on conversation.
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We have a return guest with us, Doug McDonald, and we're going to be talking about a report he published in July 2026 called The Future of Product Lifecycle Management After 40 Years, Where Are We and What's Next?
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And it sets the premise of a new term called FPHE.
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So everyone's new acronym, which stands for the Future Platform for Hardware Engineering.
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So if you don't know what that is, then you've come to the right place because we're going to be talking about that today.
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And with the person who's actually wrote the report and invented that term.
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So welcome back, Doug.
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Thank you.
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Great to be here guys.
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Good to see you again.
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Yeah, great to have you back.
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So a little bit about Doug.
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He has spent his entire career on one side of a stubborn, a stubborn industry problem.
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How do you actually get engineers what they need to build things?
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So from his mechanical engineering degree in hand, he graduated just as CADCAM was taking hold and watched PDM show up a few years later.
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So basically, his career grew up alongside the tools he'd go on to sell, build, and support.
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So he's been in the industry for a while.
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And since then, he's warned us about every hat the industry has to offer from a developer, consultant, sales advocate, and marketer.
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And moving between companies like PTC and SAP and other shops like Sherpa and Aris.
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And he calls himself a lifelong innovation enthusiast.
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And as we found out in the last episode, a recovering advocate for PLM.
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So, or maybe not.
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Well, let him explain all that.
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And here we go.
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And one another fun fact about Doug is that he's seen Led Zeppelin in concert, not once, but twice.
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And that's pretty cool because he was there.
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And um I think I'm I'm I'm jealous of that.
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So anyway, there's no liberty in that now.
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So I I'm not exactly sure how to follow that.
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That's uh that's a fun one.
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But um like like Julianne said on our earlier episode with you, Doug, um, you know, we talked about your perspective and personal history with PLM as it evolved out of PDM systems in the late 80s.
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And we teased today's topic a bit in the last episode because I think it's your history with PLM that has led you to talk about this FPHE concept.
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So that's what what we want to dig into today.
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I don't want to steal your thunder, um, but in the ongoing battle about PLM is dead, long live PLM, it it feels like FPHE is launching a new salvo on the PLM is dead side of things.
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But I want to hear about that from you.
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Um, one thing I want to note for our audience is that we're gonna be talking about some topics you discussed in your report on FPHE, like Julianne mentioned earlier.
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Um, that's not in the title of the report, but it gets mentioned.
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And anyway, they can download that report freely.
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So this isn't something behind a paywall.
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We'll have the link in the show notes, but if people want to read more, they can do that.
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But let's just dive in and talk more about what that is.
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So let me start with what led you to identify this future platform for hardware engineering as something different from PLM.
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Um yeah, why bother?
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Um it was it was a couple of things, really.
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One is uh, you know, as we talked about extensively last time, the world has changed dramatically since the advent of PDM and its evolution into PLM.
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You know, we've gone from products which were essentially mechanical parts to products which are very complex now, involving electrical, electronics, wireless technologies, embedded software, cloud services, and even for relatively simple products, that is that is kind of like the rule today.
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And yet at the same time, it's been my observation, having been part of the industry over all this time, that PLM has hardly changed.
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PLM has not reacted to this, not reacted adequately enough to this increasing complexity in uh the way that products are designed, what they're made up of, or even how they're manufactured, where we've gone from a heavy vertical integration in the 80s and before to a heavily outsourced world today where it's not just manufacturing that's outsourced, but design is outsourced as well.
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So suppliers can be responsible for you know 50, 60, 70 percent of the product design, and that the OEM becomes more of a system integrator than a product developer.
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So I'm watching all this happening, and um I I mean I've had this wasn't a sudden realization that the world was changing.
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I mean, I can remember at Sherpa in the 90s we had a we had a defense customer who was developing software and wanted to be able to manage their their software, their embedded software, in uh in Sherpa.
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And they engaged a consultant and they built some that consultant built some extensions to the the Sherpa uh model to be able to manage embedded software.
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And we then hired that consultant and said, build that into the product for us, and they came and they showed us how to do that.
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So that was, you know, that was 30 years ago, and um, you know, I could see the same thing happening with electronics, and that you know, the electronics was becoming more important, and yet pretty much all that PLM was doing was importing a bill of materials, it was not involved in any way in the development of uh PCBs or or you know integrated circuits.
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So the the problem that was emerging was that you now went from a situation where if it was a mechanical design, you could pretty much stand at a blackboard or whiteboard and sketch it all out and and say, okay, that's that's the bits we need, boys, off we go, boys and girls.
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Or to one today where it was, you know, where it's highly conceptual, and we have to come up with, you know, we start with set of requirements and we have to agree the requirements, and then in many cases, we will go and build a formal uh system model, or and if we don't build a formal system model, we'll probably have to build an informal one because you need some kind of system model that says, well, how are we gonna achieve this functionality?
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And then we need to break that apart and say how are we going to allocate that functionality to the mechanical bits and the electrical bits and the electronics and the software?
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What's going to do what?
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So that when we bring the product together at the end of the day, it actually meets the requirements.
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Well, that's a completely different problem from the one that PDM and PLM set out to achieve.
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And so I could see that it was it was evident from a very early time that PLM was not going to keep up, was not evolving.
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And so I suppose as you know, as I came to this point in my career, this I this, you know, I don't know what the right word is, but you know, having helped birth the industry, I just kind of like throw up my hands in horror and say, is this it?
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I'm sorry.
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This is what we got to.
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You know, it's like, no, no, this is not what it was meant to get to.
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This was always meant to be something that would help people develop new products.
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And today it's become, I think, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a PLM system is almost a liability now.
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Where a lot of where a product development architecture, you know, engineering ecosystem, whatever, that is anchored around PLM just becomes a mess of, sorry guys, but eventually broken integrations, uh, customizations that can't be upgraded, um, siloed applications that we're using human integrators to get information out of, um, Excel spreadsheets, Slack messages, and so on.
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That is the product development environment that exists today.
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Now, it's not the one you hear about at the conferences.
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That all that's all bright and shiny and happy, but it's the one that exists today.
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That's all you really filled out.
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I know.
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I'll get onto that in a minute, Julianne.
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Now, so that was like one side of it.
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You know, you're saying, well, why do what why did I go and do this?
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So I'm doing that, and then I'm sort of, you know, as part of my daily stay sharp ritual, I'm I'm looking at LinkedIn to see what all the the um the you know the talking heads of PLM are talking about.
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And uh so now you know everyone's coming up with cognitive threads.
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It's not digital threads anymore, it's cognitive threads.
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They are thinking threads.
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And they are like, you know, they're like magic carpets of meshes of AI agents crawling over your data and the you know, creating insights and and you know, product memory, which uh, you know, term that a lot of people have come up with.
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Product memory is the answer.
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Um, and you know, these are all reasonable points that people are making, and they're they're they're reacting to the same thing that I am, which is good.
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You know, they're all implicitly saying legacy PLM is not enough, there's got to be something new.
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How can we acknowledge graphs?
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So I forgot that.
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How can we use technology to address this?
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Um and you know, this has been, you know, reading all this stuff's been annoying me for a little while for a couple of reasons.
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One is technology is not the question, it's the answer.
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So let's get back to what is the question?
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What is the question we're trying to solve today, rather than let's immediately run in and say, no, no, it's knowledge graphs, no, no, it's cognitive threads, no, no, it's magic carpets or whatever it is.
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It's you know, what is the problem we're trying to solve?
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And I and I rarely hear anyone articulate that well, that the world has changed since PDM PLM evolved, and that the PDM PLM is not addressing the the problems that exist today.
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So to articulate that for me today, in terms of engineering and manufacturing, how the world is different, and therefore, what kind of solution we need.
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What does the engineer need to be able to do today?
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What is the engineer's job today that is not being addressed by the by legacy PLM?
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So so what's that?
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So I thought, okay, stop moaning about it, Doug, and putting comments on LinkedIn.
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Stirring the pot.
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Exactly.
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Fun as it is, go and do something.
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So um so the the first thing I wanted to do is, well, what is what what are people doing to find answers to this question?
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You know, I can't be the only person in the world saying there has to be something better than this.
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And of course, I'm I'm not.
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There are plenty of small companies around that are developing solutions that you could call PLM successors.
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Now, are they completely there yet?
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Are they addressing all of the needs?
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No, because they're small companies and they're earlier in the history.
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But are they asking the right questions?
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Yes.
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Are they approaching this from the right point of view?
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Yes.
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So does that constitute a new market?
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Well, the market's the same, but it's a new solution to what is now a different problem.
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So arguably it is a new market.
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I don't know.
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I don't want to get into the caught up in the semantics of all that.
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But clearly it's a different type of solution.
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One which I think would benefit from a name like, I don't know, product lifecycle management.
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But unfortunately, that was taken and is now a pretty tainted term that even within the legacy PLM world, people have been trying to get away from.
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But no, to to use it as a label for emerging solutions, you know, you to be able to have a conversation with some about something, it has to have a name.
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And you can't just say, hey, well, it's new PLM.
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It's new Coke.
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No, it's not, it's not new PLM.
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So I wanted to write a report on this, and and that's the crazy thing.
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And I can't, I I think I started out thinking, I'm just gonna write a couple of pages.
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And it eventually ended up because, of course, you know, I'm thinking around on LinkedIn as I'm writing it, and people keep asking questions or raising points, and I think, okay, I have to address that.
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So it just kept growing and growing and growing.
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Um, but essentially, I was just trying to, it was driven by an internal desire to sort of like get it out of my system.
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What's wrong with legacy PLM?
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And is there a way that industry can go to get away from it?
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There's no point in just writing something that criticizes and saying, so we got a problem.
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Oh, what are we going to do?
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So, my real goal, the goal of the report is to communicate to industrial companies two things.
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One is lift the scales off your eyes and see the problems that you have today with your engineering and release into manufacturing environment, you know, your so-called PLM environments.
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Recognize that they are a mess.
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And if you're high enough up in the organization to be able to do something about this, you're probably remote from the problem.
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So go and talk to your engineers and find out what's going on.
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Um then start looking at these new solutions that are evolving and convince yourself, you know, go through the exercise of matching what they can do against the problems that you've now identified in your environment.
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And if it looks like they can solve them, then start using them.
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Because these businesses can only throw thrive if they get customers.
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So that's so that's my message.
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That's two parts to the message to industrial companies.
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Recognize, get beyond the vendor gaslighting that's going on, all the marketing money that's being spent to the vendors to tell you that everything is wonderful in their garden, and it's you that are not doing a good job of implementation.
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Don't come whining to us.
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You fix your environment, but oh no, okay.
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Um, how do we get rid of all the Excel and the Slack and all that?
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Recognize that the problem is with the technology that you've you've got, it's not no longer fit for purpose, and go and look for something that's going to do a better job in the future.
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Now you're not gonna get there in one leap.
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I recognize that, but you need to get yourself on a new path to something that's better.
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It's like if you know, sorry, I don't interrupt, but like because that sort of begs this next question of how do you define these characteristics that you're that you're putting out in this report around this, you know, future platform for hardware engineering and and how is it different from PLM?
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So good question.
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And and it was like, you know, part of my one of the rules I established for myself informally before I started writing it was this had to be factual reporting.
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This is not another opinion piece.
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I'm not just throwing out, I'm trying to have everything backed up by example.
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And so I'm not just proposing product memory or magic carpet built of AI threads or anything cognitive, you know, whatever.
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I am saying, here's the problem.
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Now let's go and look at technologies that are being developed to address this problem and see what characteristics they have.
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So I started out without any kind of architecture or framework or problem set in mind.
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I wanted to see what companies were doing.
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And with uh a little help from others, I you know I found a short list of about 20 companies that were candidate for this, and I eventually whittled it down to eight that I looked at more carefully.
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And what I saw was that they all had certain characteristics.
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Now, externally, if you look at their websites, they will look quite different, but I'll explain why that is in a minute.
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But what I found was they all had certain defining characteristics.
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Number one, they were not tethered to MCAD.
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And in fact, they were not tethered to anything.
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They were all recognizing that product information comes from many different sources now, and that really the challenge is in tying together all of the different sources of information so that engineers can find them and relate them to one another in their efforts to build new products.
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Because you know, no one person is developing a product today.
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It's you know, it's more than ever, it's a team effort between people in different technical disciplines and different companies and in different parts of the world.
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So you need to be able to tie together information from many different systems to be able to collect that into what you might call a product definition.
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So they were they were doing that.
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So they were they were not tying it to MCAD, not tying it to anything.
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It was a recognition that it's it's a network problem, it's a connection problem.
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And they were, you know, as implicit in that was it's no longer just about product development.
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It's a really is about the life cycle.
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And it's kind of like, okay, now I'm starting to sound like a marketing video for Theme Center.
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Really, it's about the life cycle.
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Um but I need you as a voiceover.
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Okay.
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In a world where engineers were struggling to capture information through the life cycle.
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Um, that where you will so you'll find examples in in these tools where they are addressing in-service needs of products or looking at how inventory gets managed between ERP and MES.
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So something I learned recently is there's a lot of problems there.
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ERP's got its view of inventory, and MES is the one that's actually consuming it, and you can get into real problems where, well, it's all gone, but ERP says we've still got some stuff in the store.
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So essentially, you know, fulfilling the vision of the life cycle in that product information gets used all the way through the life cycle, all the way through the service and repair, and valuable insights get generated at downstream points in the life cycle.
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You know, most obviously this part keeps breaking, this part keeps wearing out.
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Get that back to engineers so they can fix it, yada, yada, yada.
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Same thing to same thing could be happening in the factory.
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We always have problem, a problem fitting these parts together.
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Could we have a design uh that makes it easier?
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.400
Or we put these connectors in the wrong way around half the time.
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:44.160
Can we have a fix that, you know, so stuff that problems that are not new but but are still hard to fix.
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:54.480
So, you know, being able to get information backwards and forwards across the lifecycle, across many different integrated systems.
00:21:54.640 --> 00:22:01.279
So I would say that that is that's kind of like the Defining characteristics.
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:21.200
So rather than you know, to contrast it with Leg CPLM, which is tied to MCAD and mechanical parts, and it really does not go much beyond creating a bill of materials, which then gets hacked around inside of Excel spreadsheets and broken up and distributed to the four winds, or is it the three winds?
00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:21.680
I don't know.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:30.880
But you know, goes all kinds of different places, you know, to suppliers, to code partners, to different manufacturing plants and so on.
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:36.880
You know, that's legacy PLM is is just kind of like, okay, it's gone, it's it's up to you.
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:41.680
But to a technology that says, no, we need to be able to manage stuff downstream.
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:43.200
That's that's part of the job.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:44.799
It's product information.
00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:51.680
We need to be able to manage wherever it comes from, whatever happens to it, and where wherever it needs to go.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:53.359
So I get it.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.799
I mean, I in terms of the characteristics that you're talking about, what makes it different?
00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:07.599
I'll play contrarian for a minute, though, and say, okay, but a skeptic would posit that wait, that's just another buzzword for what PLM should be anyway, that kind of thing.
00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:16.559
What so what evidence did you see or do you see that engineering and manufacturing leaders should recognize themselves, right?
00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:18.079
When you said open up your eyes, right?
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:19.519
Recognize something different.
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:26.400
What what do you see that you would show them that, hey, there is a market shift, there's something genuinely different here.
00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:40.480
So um, yeah, I I hate cup, you know, I hate creating a new term, but I I I needed the term just from the point of view of writing the report so that people knew.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:44.319
I'm talking about the old stuff here and I'm talking about the new stuff here.
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:44.720
Right.
00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:45.839
Yeah, two camps, right?
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:52.480
So yeah, so I divided it into legacy PLM and into a new name for something.
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:58.079
So it's a pretty it's not a brandable name, it's a category name.
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:01.680
It's the future platform for hardware engineering.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:04.720
So it's like, okay, there's nothing catchy in that term.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:08.720
And and you know, a few people have said to me, like, that's not a catchy term.
00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:10.240
Well, it's not meant to be.
00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:13.920
It's like, you know, it's what it says on the tin.
00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:16.319
You're like, I'm not selling it.
00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:16.880
I'm just trying to.
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:18.240
I'm not selling it.
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:22.960
You know, it says on the tin, this tin contains a future platform for hardware engineering.
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:25.680
You open it up, and that's exactly what's inside it.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:29.119
Okay, it's very it's honest marketing.
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:29.759
Okay.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:38.480
Um, so it really does go back to so how do we know that this is a new market?
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:49.599
Well, right, because as I said, if if senior people in industrial companies look critically at what's going on in their environments, they will see that things are not all well.
00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:52.640
And that's one.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:25:07.200
Then, number two, there are technologies that are emerging to address that very problem that are that are built on the understanding that there is a need to solve this.
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:29.359
So these are companies that have developed products and they're all so I when I got down to my short list of eight, I selected companies that have been in business for at least five years, had a decent number of employees, had customers, actual customers that they could name on their website, and had got funding.
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:31.920
So these are all companies.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:37.839
This is not just a founder building something in a garage and saying, hey, this would be cool.
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.319
And there believe me, there are plenty of them around.
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:42.480
And that, of course, that's where everything starts.
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:44.240
That's fine, we won't knock that.
00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:46.160
But that's too early stage.
00:25:46.240 --> 00:26:23.359
I wanted companies that had taken a product out to the market, done the hard work of finding customers and got customers to say, yes, we like this, we want to spend money and put time and effort into making this work in our environment, and then to get the attention of investors to say, yes, we think you are addressing uh a problem that exists today and uh and has got growth, growth potential for the future, we will give you some money, you know, in the order of millions of dollars.
00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:33.920
So again, if you remember what I said a moment ago, I'm not just this is not some, this is not Doug's imagined world of the future.
00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:35.599
I am reporting.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.680
This is happening.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:46.000
So, as I've said to other people, if you don't like what's in my report, you don't like reality.
00:26:46.319 --> 00:27:08.960
You you're objecting to the fact that you want to cling to the belief that legacy PLM is still doing the job, yeah, and you want to deny the fact that there are companies and investors and organizations putting time, money, and energy into solving the problems that are being left behind by legacy PLM.
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:10.160
That is what it is.
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:12.400
It's it's it's a report.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:13.119
It's not done.
00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:14.880
So let's share some of those companies.
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:17.359
I'm curious to some of the ones you want to mention here.
00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:22.079
So I'll I'll rattle them off, and they're they're based both in the US and Europe.
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:26.160
So I'll just give you the names and then I'll tell you just a little bit about them.
00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:33.680
So Cognix, Dallas, EXP Dallas spelled D-A-L-U-S, not like the city.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:38.480
EXP software, flow engineering, intercax.
00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:40.319
That's possibly the only one you've heard of.
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:41.440
Intercax, yeah.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:42.319
Intercax, yeah.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:45.599
Cognix, you mean the laser people?
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:48.240
No, the guys with Cynthia.
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:49.519
Oh, Cynthia, okay.
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:50.000
Yeah.
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:51.759
That's the intercax folks.
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:53.839
You were asking Julian, you were asking Cognex?
00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:54.480
Yeah.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:55.039
Okay.
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:57.519
What did you say about them, Juliet?
00:27:58.160 --> 00:27:59.039
No, so keep going.
00:27:59.200 --> 00:27:59.759
Intercax.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:00.400
Okay.
00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:04.160
Makersite, spread, and violet labs.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:05.599
Oh, Violet Labs, okay.
00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:14.079
So as I as I said a moment ago, when you look at their websites, they all seem to be doing different things.
00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:22.000
But when you know, when you start dig digging deeper, and the reason they're doing different things is that they have to have something to sell.
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:25.759
They you can't just build a platform with nothing on it.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.519
You have to solve a problem.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:33.440
So you have to start by you can't go into business until you find a problem you can solve.
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:36.880
And then you have to build a thing to solve that problem.
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:46.480
So all of them have started out to some degree or other solving slightly different problems, you know.
00:28:46.559 --> 00:28:50.880
So the focus might be on building a digital twin.
00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:59.279
And, you know, despite what I said last time we spoke, I will accept that there is a thing, such a thing as a digital twin.
00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:10.079
Or they might be building, you know, some of them talk about building um a platform to support digital threads, and therefore I will also accept that digital threads might exist.
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:22.960
Um, you know, there they do, and some of them are um, you know, majoring on being AI infused, although at the end of the day they all are.
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.359
Or they might be talking about uh MBSE as being their focus.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:41.839
Okay, you know, we recognize this as a systems world, so let's start with a systems model, let's let's inhale that and make that the basis for the all the stuff we've got going inside our platform.
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:47.519
So they're they're coming at it from different angles to appeal to different people, to solve different problems.
00:29:47.839 --> 00:30:10.720
But when you dig into it, they have all had to do some very similar things, like build a platform that will allow them to integrate with many different data sources, to have a very flexible internal data model that can cope with information that has come from anywhere in the lifecycle.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:31.359
So is no longer just mechanical parts and a few other things or bills of material, but it genuinely understands the kind of artifacts that get developed in eCAD systems and you know, chip design systems, and you know what embedded software looks like when you pull it apart and so on.
00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:39.119
So it's not just I got a bill of material item, it's the actual design as it is happening.
00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:51.519
Uh and an ability to translate from the data that's going in and going out to how it might be stored internally.
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:55.279
So, in other words, an ontology to be able to do that translation.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:17.279
So they've they've had to build all of these capabilities just to get to the point where they can then build their application, whether it is something that will allow you to create a uh uh you know a digital model, digital twin of a product at the back end as exists in the field.
00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:22.319
Well, to do that, you have to have field information and you have to have design information.
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:28.960
So basically, you're spanning the entire life cycle there if you're going to properly build a digital twin.
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:36.640
And if you want to be able to solve the inventory problem, you need to be able to know what's meant to go in the product.
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:48.880
So, yes, you need to have an e-bomb, and then you need to have all flavors of the M bombs, and you need to know what's going into your ERP and what's going into your MES system.
00:31:49.039 --> 00:32:00.799
You need to know how to control that flow and you know, recognizing it's maybe better not to have an ERP to MES integration, but to go back to the platform and and do it that way.
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:07.359
So technically, these were the sort of the underlying characteristics.
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.839
And I tried to capture them in the report.
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:13.839
Um, and I'm not I am not an architecture guy.
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.960
So I'm more of a what's the problem would be solved guy.
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:25.440
So I'm not going out and saying this is an architecture that has to exist for these to be future platforms.
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:25.839
Right.
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:31.279
What I'm saying is I think these are the common features of these products.
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:39.920
And I may not have got it perfectly correct, but I think it is directionally correct and maybe 80% correct.
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:42.640
But it is, you know, it is evolving.
00:32:43.119 --> 00:32:43.920
I'm tracking you.
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.599
It's it's about a pattern of problems that they're solving, not necessarily about a pattern of architecture.
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:59.440
No, I'd actually flip that and say it's the no, you know, I actually agree with you.
00:32:59.519 --> 00:32:59.759
Yeah.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:08.480
I mean, they're they're they they appear to be solving different problems on the surface, although they're having to crack the same nuts in order to be able to do that.
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:08.960
Right.
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:12.079
So I think, yeah, I think we I think I agree with what you said.
00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:16.720
So I want to pivot from there and talk about okay, where do you think it's headed, right?
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:23.759
So you've you did the research, you've reported that what you saw as sort of common threads and also what's different about them.
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:31.359
Like you said, they're each sort of attacking a different specific business problem so they can make money, but they are looking at the problem in new similar ways.
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:34.160
Where does that all go from here?
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:38.079
I mean, and I know I'm asking for conjecture at this point, Doug, but I mean, what do you see?
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:48.400
Well, you know, that's that's that that is the that is a that's the that's the challenge.
00:33:48.720 --> 00:33:51.440
So they're all small companies.
00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:55.680
If I added them all together, it would still be a small company.
00:33:55.759 --> 00:33:56.079
Right.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:56.720
Yeah.
00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:05.279
Um so how do they go from being small companies to being mid-sized companies to being large companies?
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:09.280
Well, customer adoption is is the answer.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:13.119
And how do they achieve customer adoption?
00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:39.840
Well, the customers have got to find out about them, but that's a challenge because they're small companies and they got small marketing budgets, and they're fighting against the big three who are daily, hourly pumping out stuff, saying all problems have been solved, just spend more money with us, and everything everything that you need will be provided.
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:46.159
So they're fighting against that, and they're fighting against decades of conditioning.
00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:59.039
So for example, you could have started your career 25 years ago, and somebody else starting their career today could be using the same tool set.
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:00.320
Yeah.
00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:08.960
So you join today as a you know, you graduate, and it's like, oh, my dad was using these tools.
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:15.599
Um it's like it's really hard to fight against that.
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:26.960
It's like, you know, it's like the walking in and saying, hey, you know, I'm I'm working in this building and there are brick walls and windows and so on, you know, and and there's team center on on my desktop.
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:30.559
It's just it's just another day at the office to people.
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:32.400
Why would you want to change it?
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:34.960
Uh yeah, well, we can't do that in Team Center.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:43.119
So what you do is you extract that bill of materials and you send it to Dave down in the planning office, and he knows what to do with it.
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:44.000
Oh, great.
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:45.920
Okay, I know how to do my job now.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:46.400
That's good.
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:52.079
So I designed this bit, extract the bomb, send it to Dave, all done, I can get on with something else.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:53.360
I love my work.
00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:58.480
Nobody getting up in the morning and saying, I've got to get rid of Team Center.
00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:00.880
I've got to find something better.
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:07.840
And by the time they get to the level of seniority where they could do something about it, they've got other problems to manage.
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:14.800
They've got personnel problems, they've got budget problems, they've got product problems and customer problems and all that kind of thing.
00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:18.719
And, you know, replace Team Center, that's the last thing I want to do.
00:36:19.039 --> 00:36:19.679
Right.
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:29.280
So, number one, you know, how do how do the how do these little companies, you know, wave their flags and make their flags big enough that people can see them?
00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:44.239
And number two, even if you spend, even if you recognize that your existing environment is broken and you can see that there are solutions out there that could do a better job, how are you going to hang your head on that?
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.199
Are you going to put your career on the line to do that?
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:47.760
Yeah.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:58.320
The first one you mentioned reminds me of something in a conversation we had with Monica Schniker a while ago, talking about the changes in the market of how software comes to market, right?
00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:04.800
And we were talking about changes with SaaS and what that has done to the reseller market and that that whole space.
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:06.719
And you know, that's how people used to find things.
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:13.440
25 years ago, it was you had a reseller and you knew them and you had those relationships, and they would bring ideas and tools to the table.
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:15.599
And that's not the same now, right?
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:24.880
So it's to your point, the problem of how do people find these small companies who are solving problems that they may not fully recognize yet either.
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:25.519
Yeah.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:34.480
And if you look at how the you know, the PDM PLM industry got established, well, you know, there were resellers back in the early days.
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:42.400
Uh, but it was, you know, the the consultancies, you know, the Deloitte's, the Accenture, and so on.
00:37:42.639 --> 00:38:08.239
And, you know, I can remember at um at Sherpa in the 90s partnering with these guys, and they they were all over it because this was consulting revenue for them, because they had customers with big cat environments that wanted to wanted to learn about PDM, PLM, whatever, and wanted to implement it, and they didn't know how to do it, and they didn't know who the who the vendors were.
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:12.000
I mean, I was doing it myself in the early days when I was at Cooperson Librand.
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:25.679
And so it was, it was a lot of very strong synergy between the consulting community and the um, you know, the vendor community back then to basically create and expand the market.
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:53.599
It was wonderful, everyone benefited, but it's kind of flipped the other way now, where the big consultancies, and we have to recognize that the you know the consulting world has changed dramatically, and that you know the Indian, you know, what where the Indian outsourcers are now, you know, the consulting organizations of today, you know, so that the the tattoos, tattoos and the emphasis is are as every bit as credible as you know, Accenture and Delight now.
00:38:54.159 --> 00:39:14.079
Um, but they are so bedded into the existing industry model that you know are they gonna be the ones that will go and upset the ARCART and you know start promoting these little vendors that are just gonna annoy the you know their contacts at Siemens and Dassault?
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:15.760
Well, you know, why take the risk?
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:22.159
Why go and upset the Apple Cart for you know a few tiny few bucks of extra revenue?
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:28.639
So the question is, you know, it's like how how do these little companies become known and how do they become credible?
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:31.119
And I do not know the answer to that.
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:50.880
I can't see I can't see a good past example of how that happens, of where a you know, a big, well-established, deep-rooted market and set of vendors has been eroded over time by uh a new set of vendors.
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:51.840
I I don't know.
00:39:52.079 --> 00:40:07.519
And so my my big concern uh my the thing that I could think uh that could just stop all this in it track in its tracks is these small companies either go out of business or they get acquired.
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:14.159
Either way, you know, the things that they're trying to do disappear, nothing happens.
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:19.360
Well, the other approach is just to find that niche market where they can build some customer momentum, right?
00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:33.920
I mean, that's you know, maybe it's in a specific industry or they're solving a very specific industrial, you know, complex machinery thing, or you know, wherever they can fit and grow like um, you know, some like customers where you know they can build some of that expertise.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:34.960
I've seen that work.
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:37.280
Um, it's really hard to take on the big ones, though.
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:40.000
And in any industry, you're gonna always gonna have that.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:40.320
Yeah.
00:40:40.480 --> 00:40:56.320
So now if if if you look at their successes, they are they are at the same time capturing, you know, let's say smaller companies, like a lot of you know, companies in space, a lot of new companies that are building some of the upstarts.
00:40:56.880 --> 00:41:00.800
I mean, the space space industry is it's not just SpaceX.
00:41:01.119 --> 00:41:02.400
There's lots of little companies doing that.
00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:04.639
Oh, there's a lot of little new new startups, yes.
00:41:04.880 --> 00:41:09.840
And so there, I I see these PHE vendors addressing that space.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:20.239
So companies that are more perhaps more open-minded and are very system-centric in the products that they're building and are looking for new systems.
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:26.960
And and right, you know, for them, making a few buying out a few metal parts is is is trivial to what they're trying to do.
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:27.440
Sure.
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:35.840
They're also being successful in being bolt-ons in established legacy PLM environments.
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:37.199
That's the other side.
00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:37.679
Exactly.
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:39.679
Find a little place they can fit.
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:46.800
So yes, so you know, so there is an opportunity for them to do a sort of you know, land and expand.
00:41:47.519 --> 00:42:05.840
And maybe that's how it goes, that it's a combination of okay, we get these companies in in small but important and growing industries, and we grab them from the early days, and at the same time, we do a land and expand in the big companies.
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:07.920
It could be a combination of the two.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:15.840
I mean, that's probably if it if this thing is going to work out successfully, uh, that's probably how it works.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:16.159
Yeah.
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:19.039
But I would say there's there's no guarantees at this stage.
00:42:19.360 --> 00:42:19.519
Yeah.
00:42:19.679 --> 00:42:23.119
Well, in any case, they all have to build relationships with key clients.
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:36.800
And it's hard to imagine there's a lot of manufacturers out there who don't have some relationship out there somewhere with some sort of cat or some sort of some some sort of application in this PLM space, whether it's PLM or something else.
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:37.119
Yeah.
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:43.199
I'm gonna have to throw in the red flag, gentlemen, because we have again talked our way right through the time.
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:45.760
And uh and that's not hard to do when we have fun.
00:42:46.159 --> 00:42:47.920
Yeah, we have a propensity for doing that.
00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:50.880
I'm gonna throw it at Jonathan for the summary.
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:51.519
Yeah.
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:53.280
So this was great, Doug.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:43:04.239
I mean, I think we set it up last time in uh the other episode talking about history and where we came from that really gets to why this is coming up and why you were looking at it.
00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:08.239
So we started with why FPHE is different from PLM, right?
00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:10.000
What even motivated you to look at this?
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:12.400
And boy, you had a lot of good answers there, right?
00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:17.599
The world's different from when PDM was invented, and PLM doesn't seem to be solving the problem.
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:21.679
It's an evolution of PDM, and therefore it's not the right tool for the job.
00:43:21.920 --> 00:43:23.599
So I think that's interesting.
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:26.000
You also talked about it fitting business models, right?
00:43:26.079 --> 00:43:31.199
So not just capability-wise, but does it fit the way business is done, work is done today?
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:33.760
And still some people, yes, but it's evolving away from it.
00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:35.199
So maybe there's not a match.
00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:44.400
So there's this new paradigm also related to what our products look like today, being electromechanical with code, embedded software, those kinds of things.
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:48.480
That means that you don't, you're not starting with MCAD, you're starting with systems.
00:43:48.639 --> 00:43:52.000
And those aren't problems that have been solved by PLM typically.
00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:59.840
So I think another thing that that motivated um you to say, look, this is different is the frustration and disappointment with kind of where things are.
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:00.239
Right.
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:03.599
You look back on your career and said, this isn't where I thought we would be.
00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:05.280
There's got to be something different.
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:05.599
Right.
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:11.360
And I think another piece I heard you say was we were also just solving product development.
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:13.599
We weren't solving product lifecycle.
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:15.920
So there's something that we're missing here.
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:16.400
Okay.
00:44:16.559 --> 00:44:19.519
So that pushed us into, well, tell us what's different.
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:21.920
What do you see as distinct between these two?
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:28.719
Not that the FPHE category name is magic and that you're you're married to it, but you're just trying to highlight two camps.
00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:30.320
Okay, so what's different about those?
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:35.199
So I captured a couple of characteristics that you said, but then as we kept talking, you added a few more.
00:44:35.280 --> 00:44:36.400
So here's what I heard.
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:42.400
One, these folks in this category that you're talking about are independent of MCAT, really independent of anything.
00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:45.760
It's about connecting product data in general.
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:52.320
Then there's they're not just focused on the development piece of products, but really more of the life cycle.
00:44:52.400 --> 00:44:54.800
So not just around product development, but more than that.
00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:04.719
I think you named a couple of other things, is that they at their core have to be some kind of platform to integrate because of that ability to be independent of anything.
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:11.679
And that also you mentioned a flexible data model with some sort of ontology that's going to let them relate to all these different sources.
00:45:11.840 --> 00:45:16.400
So those are things I heard about the characteristics, what you saw as being in common here.
00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:19.679
Now, I wanted to press a little bit on so what's the evidence?
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.079
Why do we know there's really a shift happening here?
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.559
And some of the answers you had there, right?
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:30.079
People should know if they look inside their own organization, is the current system working or not working?
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:34.719
If you're working outside of the system, it's probably a sign that it's not working the way you need it to.
00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:41.360
And where things are broken, if you see evidence of people solving those problems differently, okay, that's a sign, right?
00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:43.920
To you, that's a sign of we're we're headed somewhere.
00:45:44.239 --> 00:45:53.519
And um the other piece you added, which I thought was so interesting, is it wasn't like you went out and found a bunch of inventors, startups, people in their garage just making software.
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:56.960
It's no, I went and looked at folks who've been in business for five years.
00:45:57.119 --> 00:45:58.320
They have a revenue stream.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:01.280
There's really something to it, it's not just an idea.
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:03.280
So I thought that was it was a good take.
00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:04.880
Now, Julianne, you pressed on.
00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:06.400
All right, so what are some examples, right?
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:08.159
And Doug, you named ones from the report.
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:15.119
I'll just highlight them here: Cognix, Dallas, EXP, Flow Engineering, Intercax, Makersite, Spread, Violet Labs.
00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:18.320
They're probably more out there, but those are ones from the report.
00:46:18.480 --> 00:46:23.360
And you mentioned they are not, you're not gonna look at them and say, oh, they're all doing the same thing.
00:46:23.519 --> 00:46:24.639
They're not, right?
00:46:24.880 --> 00:46:29.039
Under the hood, when you did the research, that's how you came up with the common characteristics.
00:46:29.199 --> 00:46:33.039
But these folks are all doing different things in different markets because they've got to make money, right?
00:46:33.119 --> 00:46:42.320
So they're solving one problem, but I think part of your hypothesis is they're set to explore different problems in this unique way that makes the category.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:47:02.000
So lastly, when we talked about where is this all headed, I, you know, I wish it was positive and roses, but I think you're you're being fair and pragmatic by saying, I don't know, I don't know quite where it's headed, because there's a challenge for these folks to find their market, to find the people who need them, because not everybody is recognizing the problems that they're facing yet.
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:12.000
And it's not the same world that we had 25 years ago when people saw the problem, they went out looking to solve it, they maybe had a reseller network or a consulting network.
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:13.519
It the world's just different.
00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:20.639
So it's trickier for these companies to be found, to grow the revenue, to evolve into what you think might be coming.
00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:22.320
So we don't know, right?
00:47:22.480 --> 00:47:26.239
But that's some of what we see happening in the uh the future.
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:31.679
Last thing I'll mention there is you noted land and expand might be how this proceeds, right?
00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:43.920
That some of these folks solve that point problem, but then as they get into an organization and people recognize those characteristics you named, that it starts to expand around some of the legacy solutions and displace it bit by bit.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:45.519
So that's what I heard.
00:47:45.679 --> 00:47:46.719
What did I miss, Doug?
00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:50.639
Or what would you add on top of that for people to understand about what you're getting at here?
00:47:50.960 --> 00:47:53.039
No, that's that was perfect summation.
00:47:53.599 --> 00:47:56.960
I'm sitting here thinking, my goodness, you should have been alarmed, Jonathan.
00:47:57.039 --> 00:47:57.920
I can see you.
00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:01.440
I can see you just summing up for the defense.
00:48:01.519 --> 00:48:03.760
And it's like you're right.
00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:05.039
He's innocent.
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:10.719
Or in this case, PLM is guilty, guilty as charged.
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:13.519
No, that that was great.
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:15.440
Very well, very well summarized.
00:48:15.519 --> 00:48:15.760
Thank you.
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:16.320
Yes, good.
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:20.559
Well, then thank you so much, Doug, for your time today and joining us back on the podcast.
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:21.760
It was great to have you on.
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:22.639
Absolutely.
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:23.519
It was good stuff.
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:24.000
Thank you.
00:48:24.079 --> 00:48:24.719
I enjoyed it.
00:48:25.039 --> 00:48:26.800
Yeah, and thanks, Jonathan, as always.
00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:28.639
It's always fun to have these conversations.
00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:31.679
So, with that, everybody, we hope you enjoyed the conversation today.
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:36.639
Uh, if you got anything out of this, please leave us a comment, give us a like, send us some feedback on the show.
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:42.079
If you have any questions for Doug on his report, uh just shoot, uh, give us a message or you can get in touch with Doug.
00:48:42.159 --> 00:48:43.360
He is on LinkedIn.
00:48:43.519 --> 00:48:46.480
Uh, we'll put his profile link in the notes.
00:48:46.639 --> 00:48:50.800
Um, and with that, we're always up for more questions or ideas for future episodes.
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:52.400
And uh, we hope you tune in.
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:54.880
So, with that, we hope you have a great day.
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:57.199
And until next time, stay sharp.
00:48:57.519 --> 00:48:58.719
Thanks, everybody.
00:48:58.960 --> 00:48:59.920
Thank you.
00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:02.400
So that's a wrap.
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:04.639
Doug's honest about where this leaves us.
00:49:04.800 --> 00:49:12.559
He shared eight companies, all small, solving different pieces of the same underlying problem, and no guarantee that any of them will survive long enough to matter.
00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:15.280
But his real argument isn't about picking a winner.
00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:21.119
It's about the tools that running most engineering organizations today were built for a world that doesn't really exist anymore.
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:23.920
Pretending to be otherwise is an actual risk.
00:49:24.079 --> 00:49:25.760
So it gave us a lot to think about.
00:49:25.920 --> 00:49:28.079
We welcome your ideas, thoughts, and comments on this.
00:49:28.239 --> 00:49:30.159
If you got something out of it, please let us know.
00:49:30.320 --> 00:49:32.320
Give us a like or a comment.
00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:39.360
And if there's a topic you'd like us to cover or guests you also want to hear from, please send us a note at podcast at raiseleaf.com.
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:40.719
We'd love to hear from you.
00:49:40.880 --> 00:49:44.239
This podcast is for you, so let's make it better together.
00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:45.920
Thanks for staying sharp with us.
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:47.280
See you next time.
00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.000
Hey there, it's good to have you back.
00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:17.359
This is Stage Sharp with Rage Relief, where digital strategy meets the messy reality of building real products.
00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:19.039
Really glad you're here.
00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:27.199
So let's say hello to FPHE, a new four-letter term one industry veteran thinks might be PLM's successor.
00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:29.440
Or we'll let him make the case.
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:32.560
In this episode, we're joined again by Doug McDonald.
00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:40.960
He's back for round two to talk about his new report that he published and the term he coined with it, FPHE, the future platform of hardware engineering.
00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:42.640
Let's jump in.
00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:52.000
Welcome back, everybody, to Stay Sharp and Digital Engineering, the podcast about all things digital related to products from engineering to manufacturing, service, and more.
00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:56.240
I'm one of your hosts, Julianne Grant, and I'm joined today by my co-host, Jonathan Scott.
00:00:56.560 --> 00:00:58.000
Hey everybody, good to be back.
00:00:58.240 --> 00:00:59.439
Hey, Jonathan.
00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:01.600
Well, good, always good to be back here.
00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:02.640
Absolutely.
00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:04.239
And continuing on this topic.
00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:04.879
Looking forward to it.
00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:06.159
Yes, yes.
00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:08.959
So, anyway, looking forward to this conversation today.
00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:10.719
It is a follow-on conversation.
00:01:10.879 --> 00:01:22.879
We have a return guest with us, Doug McDonald, and we're going to be talking about a report he published in July 2026 called The Future of Product Lifecycle Management After 40 Years, Where Are We and What's Next?
00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:27.359
And it sets the premise of a new term called FPHE.
00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:32.799
So everyone's new acronym, which stands for the Future Platform for Hardware Engineering.
00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:36.959
So if you don't know what that is, then you've come to the right place because we're going to be talking about that today.
00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:40.079
And with the person who's actually wrote the report and invented that term.
00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:41.280
So welcome back, Doug.
00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:42.239
Thank you.
00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:43.599
Great to be here guys.
00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:45.040
Good to see you again.
00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:46.480
Yeah, great to have you back.
00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:48.000
So a little bit about Doug.
00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:52.959
He has spent his entire career on one side of a stubborn, a stubborn industry problem.
00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:56.000
How do you actually get engineers what they need to build things?
00:01:56.239 --> 00:02:04.799
So from his mechanical engineering degree in hand, he graduated just as CADCAM was taking hold and watched PDM show up a few years later.
00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:10.879
So basically, his career grew up alongside the tools he'd go on to sell, build, and support.
00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:12.879
So he's been in the industry for a while.
00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:19.599
And since then, he's warned us about every hat the industry has to offer from a developer, consultant, sales advocate, and marketer.
00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:25.680
And moving between companies like PTC and SAP and other shops like Sherpa and Aris.
00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:28.800
And he calls himself a lifelong innovation enthusiast.
00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:32.879
And as we found out in the last episode, a recovering advocate for PLM.
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:34.560
So, or maybe not.
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.000
Well, let him explain all that.
00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:38.719
And here we go.
00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:45.439
And one another fun fact about Doug is that he's seen Led Zeppelin in concert, not once, but twice.
00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:48.240
And that's pretty cool because he was there.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:50.879
And um I think I'm I'm I'm jealous of that.
00:02:51.039 --> 00:02:53.919
So anyway, there's no liberty in that now.
00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.560
So I I'm not exactly sure how to follow that.
00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:57.840
That's uh that's a fun one.
00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:10.000
But um like like Julianne said on our earlier episode with you, Doug, um, you know, we talked about your perspective and personal history with PLM as it evolved out of PDM systems in the late 80s.
00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:20.000
And we teased today's topic a bit in the last episode because I think it's your history with PLM that has led you to talk about this FPHE concept.
00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:22.479
So that's what what we want to dig into today.
00:03:22.639 --> 00:03:34.800
I don't want to steal your thunder, um, but in the ongoing battle about PLM is dead, long live PLM, it it feels like FPHE is launching a new salvo on the PLM is dead side of things.
00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:36.719
But I want to hear about that from you.
00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:45.439
Um, one thing I want to note for our audience is that we're gonna be talking about some topics you discussed in your report on FPHE, like Julianne mentioned earlier.
00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:48.240
Um, that's not in the title of the report, but it gets mentioned.
00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:50.639
And anyway, they can download that report freely.
00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:52.319
So this isn't something behind a paywall.
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.080
We'll have the link in the show notes, but if people want to read more, they can do that.
00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.120
But let's just dive in and talk more about what that is.
00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:08.719
So let me start with what led you to identify this future platform for hardware engineering as something different from PLM.
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:14.400
Um yeah, why bother?
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:18.399
Um it was it was a couple of things, really.
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:28.800
One is uh, you know, as we talked about extensively last time, the world has changed dramatically since the advent of PDM and its evolution into PLM.
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:49.439
You know, we've gone from products which were essentially mechanical parts to products which are very complex now, involving electrical, electronics, wireless technologies, embedded software, cloud services, and even for relatively simple products, that is that is kind of like the rule today.
00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:59.040
And yet at the same time, it's been my observation, having been part of the industry over all this time, that PLM has hardly changed.
00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:26.720
PLM has not reacted to this, not reacted adequately enough to this increasing complexity in uh the way that products are designed, what they're made up of, or even how they're manufactured, where we've gone from a heavy vertical integration in the 80s and before to a heavily outsourced world today where it's not just manufacturing that's outsourced, but design is outsourced as well.
00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:38.639
So suppliers can be responsible for you know 50, 60, 70 percent of the product design, and that the OEM becomes more of a system integrator than a product developer.
00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:48.079
So I'm watching all this happening, and um I I mean I've had this wasn't a sudden realization that the world was changing.
00:05:48.240 --> 00:06:03.680
I mean, I can remember at Sherpa in the 90s we had a we had a defense customer who was developing software and wanted to be able to manage their their software, their embedded software, in uh in Sherpa.
00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:15.920
And they engaged a consultant and they built some that consultant built some extensions to the the Sherpa uh model to be able to manage embedded software.
00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:22.879
And we then hired that consultant and said, build that into the product for us, and they came and they showed us how to do that.
00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:48.319
So that was, you know, that was 30 years ago, and um, you know, I could see the same thing happening with electronics, and that you know, the electronics was becoming more important, and yet pretty much all that PLM was doing was importing a bill of materials, it was not involved in any way in the development of uh PCBs or or you know integrated circuits.
00:06:48.800 --> 00:07:11.120
So the the problem that was emerging was that you now went from a situation where if it was a mechanical design, you could pretty much stand at a blackboard or whiteboard and sketch it all out and and say, okay, that's that's the bits we need, boys, off we go, boys and girls.
00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:36.800
Or to one today where it was, you know, where it's highly conceptual, and we have to come up with, you know, we start with set of requirements and we have to agree the requirements, and then in many cases, we will go and build a formal uh system model, or and if we don't build a formal system model, we'll probably have to build an informal one because you need some kind of system model that says, well, how are we gonna achieve this functionality?
00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:45.920
And then we need to break that apart and say how are we going to allocate that functionality to the mechanical bits and the electrical bits and the electronics and the software?
00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:47.360
What's going to do what?
00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:54.240
So that when we bring the product together at the end of the day, it actually meets the requirements.
00:07:54.399 --> 00:08:01.759
Well, that's a completely different problem from the one that PDM and PLM set out to achieve.
00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:13.120
And so I could see that it was it was evident from a very early time that PLM was not going to keep up, was not evolving.
00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:31.199
And so I suppose as you know, as I came to this point in my career, this I this, you know, I don't know what the right word is, but you know, having helped birth the industry, I just kind of like throw up my hands in horror and say, is this it?
00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:32.399
I'm sorry.
00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:35.840
This is what we got to.
00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:41.840
You know, it's like, no, no, this is not what it was meant to get to.
00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:46.480
This was always meant to be something that would help people develop new products.
00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:54.720
And today it's become, I think, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a PLM system is almost a liability now.
00:08:54.879 --> 00:09:28.399
Where a lot of where a product development architecture, you know, engineering ecosystem, whatever, that is anchored around PLM just becomes a mess of, sorry guys, but eventually broken integrations, uh, customizations that can't be upgraded, um, siloed applications that we're using human integrators to get information out of, um, Excel spreadsheets, Slack messages, and so on.
00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:33.120
That is the product development environment that exists today.
00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:36.000
Now, it's not the one you hear about at the conferences.
00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.279
That all that's all bright and shiny and happy, but it's the one that exists today.
00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:43.279
That's all you really filled out.
00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:44.320
I know.
00:09:44.639 --> 00:09:46.799
I'll get onto that in a minute, Julianne.
00:09:49.759 --> 00:09:51.919
Now, so that was like one side of it.
00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:55.039
You know, you're saying, well, why do what why did I go and do this?
00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:07.679
So I'm doing that, and then I'm sort of, you know, as part of my daily stay sharp ritual, I'm I'm looking at LinkedIn to see what all the the um the you know the talking heads of PLM are talking about.
00:10:08.080 --> 00:10:15.120
And uh so now you know everyone's coming up with cognitive threads.
00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.840
It's not digital threads anymore, it's cognitive threads.
00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:19.600
They are thinking threads.
00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:39.440
And they are like, you know, they're like magic carpets of meshes of AI agents crawling over your data and the you know, creating insights and and you know, product memory, which uh, you know, term that a lot of people have come up with.
00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:41.840
Product memory is the answer.
00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:52.240
Um, and you know, these are all reasonable points that people are making, and they're they're they're reacting to the same thing that I am, which is good.
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:57.279
You know, they're all implicitly saying legacy PLM is not enough, there's got to be something new.
00:10:57.519 --> 00:10:59.279
How can we acknowledge graphs?
00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:00.240
So I forgot that.
00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:04.080
How can we use technology to address this?
00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:12.080
Um and you know, this has been, you know, reading all this stuff's been annoying me for a little while for a couple of reasons.
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:17.120
One is technology is not the question, it's the answer.
00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:19.519
So let's get back to what is the question?
00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:31.600
What is the question we're trying to solve today, rather than let's immediately run in and say, no, no, it's knowledge graphs, no, no, it's cognitive threads, no, no, it's magic carpets or whatever it is.
00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.039
It's you know, what is the problem we're trying to solve?
00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:49.440
And I and I rarely hear anyone articulate that well, that the world has changed since PDM PLM evolved, and that the PDM PLM is not addressing the the problems that exist today.
00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:59.039
So to articulate that for me today, in terms of engineering and manufacturing, how the world is different, and therefore, what kind of solution we need.
00:11:59.120 --> 00:12:01.279
What does the engineer need to be able to do today?
00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:07.679
What is the engineer's job today that is not being addressed by the by legacy PLM?
00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:09.360
So so what's that?
00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:16.559
So I thought, okay, stop moaning about it, Doug, and putting comments on LinkedIn.
00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:18.799
Stirring the pot.
00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:20.480
Exactly.
00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:26.000
Fun as it is, go and do something.
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:37.519
So um so the the first thing I wanted to do is, well, what is what what are people doing to find answers to this question?
00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:42.240
You know, I can't be the only person in the world saying there has to be something better than this.
00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:44.320
And of course, I'm I'm not.
00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:54.960
There are plenty of small companies around that are developing solutions that you could call PLM successors.
00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.399
Now, are they completely there yet?
00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:01.039
Are they addressing all of the needs?
00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:05.279
No, because they're small companies and they're earlier in the history.
00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:07.919
But are they asking the right questions?
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:08.799
Yes.
00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:12.000
Are they approaching this from the right point of view?
00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:12.960
Yes.
00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:18.080
So does that constitute a new market?
00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:23.840
Well, the market's the same, but it's a new solution to what is now a different problem.
00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.120
So arguably it is a new market.
00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:27.679
I don't know.
00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:31.440
I don't want to get into the caught up in the semantics of all that.
00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:35.679
But clearly it's a different type of solution.
00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:43.519
One which I think would benefit from a name like, I don't know, product lifecycle management.
00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:56.399
But unfortunately, that was taken and is now a pretty tainted term that even within the legacy PLM world, people have been trying to get away from.
00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:09.919
But no, to to use it as a label for emerging solutions, you know, you to be able to have a conversation with some about something, it has to have a name.
00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.679
And you can't just say, hey, well, it's new PLM.
00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:15.200
It's new Coke.
00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:17.440
No, it's not, it's not new PLM.
00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:22.320
So I wanted to write a report on this, and and that's the crazy thing.
00:14:22.399 --> 00:14:27.360
And I can't, I I think I started out thinking, I'm just gonna write a couple of pages.
00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:38.799
And it eventually ended up because, of course, you know, I'm thinking around on LinkedIn as I'm writing it, and people keep asking questions or raising points, and I think, okay, I have to address that.
00:14:39.039 --> 00:14:41.600
So it just kept growing and growing and growing.
00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:51.440
Um, but essentially, I was just trying to, it was driven by an internal desire to sort of like get it out of my system.
00:14:51.759 --> 00:14:53.840
What's wrong with legacy PLM?
00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:59.600
And is there a way that industry can go to get away from it?
00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:05.519
There's no point in just writing something that criticizes and saying, so we got a problem.
00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:07.279
Oh, what are we going to do?
00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:15.360
So, my real goal, the goal of the report is to communicate to industrial companies two things.
00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:30.320
One is lift the scales off your eyes and see the problems that you have today with your engineering and release into manufacturing environment, you know, your so-called PLM environments.
00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:34.000
Recognize that they are a mess.
00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:41.919
And if you're high enough up in the organization to be able to do something about this, you're probably remote from the problem.
00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:47.200
So go and talk to your engineers and find out what's going on.
00:15:48.480 --> 00:16:05.120
Um then start looking at these new solutions that are evolving and convince yourself, you know, go through the exercise of matching what they can do against the problems that you've now identified in your environment.
00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:10.080
And if it looks like they can solve them, then start using them.
00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:15.919
Because these businesses can only throw thrive if they get customers.
00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:17.919
So that's so that's my message.
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:21.360
That's two parts to the message to industrial companies.
00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:34.720
Recognize, get beyond the vendor gaslighting that's going on, all the marketing money that's being spent to the vendors to tell you that everything is wonderful in their garden, and it's you that are not doing a good job of implementation.
00:16:34.799 --> 00:16:36.159
Don't come whining to us.
00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:39.200
You fix your environment, but oh no, okay.
00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:43.039
Um, how do we get rid of all the Excel and the Slack and all that?
00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:53.360
Recognize that the problem is with the technology that you've you've got, it's not no longer fit for purpose, and go and look for something that's going to do a better job in the future.
00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:55.519
Now you're not gonna get there in one leap.
00:16:55.679 --> 00:17:01.600
I recognize that, but you need to get yourself on a new path to something that's better.
00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:18.319
It's like if you know, sorry, I don't interrupt, but like because that sort of begs this next question of how do you define these characteristics that you're that you're putting out in this report around this, you know, future platform for hardware engineering and and how is it different from PLM?
00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:20.880
So good question.
00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:30.720
And and it was like, you know, part of my one of the rules I established for myself informally before I started writing it was this had to be factual reporting.
00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:32.960
This is not another opinion piece.
00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:39.039
I'm not just throwing out, I'm trying to have everything backed up by example.
00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:47.839
And so I'm not just proposing product memory or magic carpet built of AI threads or anything cognitive, you know, whatever.
00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:50.240
I am saying, here's the problem.
00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:59.200
Now let's go and look at technologies that are being developed to address this problem and see what characteristics they have.
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:09.039
So I started out without any kind of architecture or framework or problem set in mind.
00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.839
I wanted to see what companies were doing.
00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:23.680
And with uh a little help from others, I you know I found a short list of about 20 companies that were candidate for this, and I eventually whittled it down to eight that I looked at more carefully.
00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:27.039
And what I saw was that they all had certain characteristics.
00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:34.799
Now, externally, if you look at their websites, they will look quite different, but I'll explain why that is in a minute.
00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:38.160
But what I found was they all had certain defining characteristics.
00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:40.880
Number one, they were not tethered to MCAD.
00:18:41.440 --> 00:18:44.799
And in fact, they were not tethered to anything.
00:18:45.839 --> 00:19:07.839
They were all recognizing that product information comes from many different sources now, and that really the challenge is in tying together all of the different sources of information so that engineers can find them and relate them to one another in their efforts to build new products.
00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:10.799
Because you know, no one person is developing a product today.
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:21.119
It's you know, it's more than ever, it's a team effort between people in different technical disciplines and different companies and in different parts of the world.
00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:31.839
So you need to be able to tie together information from many different systems to be able to collect that into what you might call a product definition.
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:33.759
So they were they were doing that.
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:39.119
So they were they were not tying it to MCAD, not tying it to anything.
00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:44.799
It was a recognition that it's it's a network problem, it's a connection problem.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:51.759
And they were, you know, as implicit in that was it's no longer just about product development.
00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.640
It's a really is about the life cycle.
00:19:54.720 --> 00:20:00.079
And it's kind of like, okay, now I'm starting to sound like a marketing video for Theme Center.
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:02.880
Really, it's about the life cycle.
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:09.920
Um but I need you as a voiceover.
00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:10.319
Okay.
00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:19.440
In a world where engineers were struggling to capture information through the life cycle.
00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:35.279
Um, that where you will so you'll find examples in in these tools where they are addressing in-service needs of products or looking at how inventory gets managed between ERP and MES.
00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:39.200
So something I learned recently is there's a lot of problems there.
00:20:39.519 --> 00:20:50.640
ERP's got its view of inventory, and MES is the one that's actually consuming it, and you can get into real problems where, well, it's all gone, but ERP says we've still got some stuff in the store.
00:20:50.880 --> 00:21:14.000
So essentially, you know, fulfilling the vision of the life cycle in that product information gets used all the way through the life cycle, all the way through the service and repair, and valuable insights get generated at downstream points in the life cycle.
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:18.079
You know, most obviously this part keeps breaking, this part keeps wearing out.
00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:21.759
Get that back to engineers so they can fix it, yada, yada, yada.
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:25.359
Same thing to same thing could be happening in the factory.
00:21:25.519 --> 00:21:28.880
We always have problem, a problem fitting these parts together.
00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:31.920
Could we have a design uh that makes it easier?
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.400
Or we put these connectors in the wrong way around half the time.
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:44.160
Can we have a fix that, you know, so stuff that problems that are not new but but are still hard to fix.
00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:54.480
So, you know, being able to get information backwards and forwards across the lifecycle, across many different integrated systems.
00:21:54.640 --> 00:22:01.279
So I would say that that is that's kind of like the Defining characteristics.
00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:21.200
So rather than you know, to contrast it with Leg CPLM, which is tied to MCAD and mechanical parts, and it really does not go much beyond creating a bill of materials, which then gets hacked around inside of Excel spreadsheets and broken up and distributed to the four winds, or is it the three winds?
00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:21.680
I don't know.
00:22:21.839 --> 00:22:30.880
But you know, goes all kinds of different places, you know, to suppliers, to code partners, to different manufacturing plants and so on.
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:36.880
You know, that's legacy PLM is is just kind of like, okay, it's gone, it's it's up to you.
00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:41.680
But to a technology that says, no, we need to be able to manage stuff downstream.
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:43.200
That's that's part of the job.
00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:44.799
It's product information.
00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:51.680
We need to be able to manage wherever it comes from, whatever happens to it, and where wherever it needs to go.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:53.359
So I get it.
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.799
I mean, I in terms of the characteristics that you're talking about, what makes it different?
00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:07.599
I'll play contrarian for a minute, though, and say, okay, but a skeptic would posit that wait, that's just another buzzword for what PLM should be anyway, that kind of thing.
00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:16.559
What so what evidence did you see or do you see that engineering and manufacturing leaders should recognize themselves, right?
00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:18.079
When you said open up your eyes, right?
00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:19.519
Recognize something different.
00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:26.400
What what do you see that you would show them that, hey, there is a market shift, there's something genuinely different here.
00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:40.480
So um, yeah, I I hate cup, you know, I hate creating a new term, but I I I needed the term just from the point of view of writing the report so that people knew.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:44.319
I'm talking about the old stuff here and I'm talking about the new stuff here.
00:23:44.559 --> 00:23:44.720
Right.
00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:45.839
Yeah, two camps, right?
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:52.480
So yeah, so I divided it into legacy PLM and into a new name for something.
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:58.079
So it's a pretty it's not a brandable name, it's a category name.
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:01.680
It's the future platform for hardware engineering.
00:24:01.839 --> 00:24:04.720
So it's like, okay, there's nothing catchy in that term.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:08.720
And and you know, a few people have said to me, like, that's not a catchy term.
00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:10.240
Well, it's not meant to be.
00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:13.920
It's like, you know, it's what it says on the tin.
00:24:15.119 --> 00:24:16.319
You're like, I'm not selling it.
00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:16.880
I'm just trying to.
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:18.240
I'm not selling it.
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:22.960
You know, it says on the tin, this tin contains a future platform for hardware engineering.
00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:25.680
You open it up, and that's exactly what's inside it.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:29.119
Okay, it's very it's honest marketing.
00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:29.759
Okay.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:38.480
Um, so it really does go back to so how do we know that this is a new market?
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:49.599
Well, right, because as I said, if if senior people in industrial companies look critically at what's going on in their environments, they will see that things are not all well.
00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:52.640
And that's one.
00:24:54.079 --> 00:25:07.200
Then, number two, there are technologies that are emerging to address that very problem that are that are built on the understanding that there is a need to solve this.
00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:29.359
So these are companies that have developed products and they're all so I when I got down to my short list of eight, I selected companies that have been in business for at least five years, had a decent number of employees, had customers, actual customers that they could name on their website, and had got funding.
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:31.920
So these are all companies.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:37.839
This is not just a founder building something in a garage and saying, hey, this would be cool.
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.319
And there believe me, there are plenty of them around.
00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:42.480
And that, of course, that's where everything starts.
00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:44.240
That's fine, we won't knock that.
00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:46.160
But that's too early stage.
00:25:46.240 --> 00:26:23.359
I wanted companies that had taken a product out to the market, done the hard work of finding customers and got customers to say, yes, we like this, we want to spend money and put time and effort into making this work in our environment, and then to get the attention of investors to say, yes, we think you are addressing uh a problem that exists today and uh and has got growth, growth potential for the future, we will give you some money, you know, in the order of millions of dollars.
00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:33.920
So again, if you remember what I said a moment ago, I'm not just this is not some, this is not Doug's imagined world of the future.
00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:35.599
I am reporting.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.680
This is happening.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:46.000
So, as I've said to other people, if you don't like what's in my report, you don't like reality.
00:26:46.319 --> 00:27:08.960
You you're objecting to the fact that you want to cling to the belief that legacy PLM is still doing the job, yeah, and you want to deny the fact that there are companies and investors and organizations putting time, money, and energy into solving the problems that are being left behind by legacy PLM.
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:10.160
That is what it is.
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:12.400
It's it's it's a report.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:13.119
It's not done.
00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:14.880
So let's share some of those companies.
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:17.359
I'm curious to some of the ones you want to mention here.
00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:22.079
So I'll I'll rattle them off, and they're they're based both in the US and Europe.
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:26.160
So I'll just give you the names and then I'll tell you just a little bit about them.
00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:33.680
So Cognix, Dallas, EXP Dallas spelled D-A-L-U-S, not like the city.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:38.480
EXP software, flow engineering, intercax.
00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:40.319
That's possibly the only one you've heard of.
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:41.440
Intercax, yeah.
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:42.319
Intercax, yeah.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:45.599
Cognix, you mean the laser people?
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:48.240
No, the guys with Cynthia.
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:49.519
Oh, Cynthia, okay.
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:50.000
Yeah.
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:51.759
That's the intercax folks.
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:53.839
You were asking Julian, you were asking Cognex?
00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:54.480
Yeah.
00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:55.039
Okay.
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:57.519
What did you say about them, Juliet?
00:27:58.160 --> 00:27:59.039
No, so keep going.
00:27:59.200 --> 00:27:59.759
Intercax.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:00.400
Okay.
00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:04.160
Makersite, spread, and violet labs.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:05.599
Oh, Violet Labs, okay.
00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:14.079
So as I as I said a moment ago, when you look at their websites, they all seem to be doing different things.
00:28:14.319 --> 00:28:22.000
But when you know, when you start dig digging deeper, and the reason they're doing different things is that they have to have something to sell.
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:25.759
They you can't just build a platform with nothing on it.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.519
You have to solve a problem.
00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:33.440
So you have to start by you can't go into business until you find a problem you can solve.
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:36.880
And then you have to build a thing to solve that problem.
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:46.480
So all of them have started out to some degree or other solving slightly different problems, you know.
00:28:46.559 --> 00:28:50.880
So the focus might be on building a digital twin.
00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:59.279
And, you know, despite what I said last time we spoke, I will accept that there is a thing, such a thing as a digital twin.
00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:10.079
Or they might be building, you know, some of them talk about building um a platform to support digital threads, and therefore I will also accept that digital threads might exist.
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:22.960
Um, you know, there they do, and some of them are um, you know, majoring on being AI infused, although at the end of the day they all are.
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.359
Or they might be talking about uh MBSE as being their focus.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:41.839
Okay, you know, we recognize this as a systems world, so let's start with a systems model, let's let's inhale that and make that the basis for the all the stuff we've got going inside our platform.
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:47.519
So they're they're coming at it from different angles to appeal to different people, to solve different problems.
00:29:47.839 --> 00:30:10.720
But when you dig into it, they have all had to do some very similar things, like build a platform that will allow them to integrate with many different data sources, to have a very flexible internal data model that can cope with information that has come from anywhere in the lifecycle.
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:31.359
So is no longer just mechanical parts and a few other things or bills of material, but it genuinely understands the kind of artifacts that get developed in eCAD systems and you know, chip design systems, and you know what embedded software looks like when you pull it apart and so on.
00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:39.119
So it's not just I got a bill of material item, it's the actual design as it is happening.
00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:51.519
Uh and an ability to translate from the data that's going in and going out to how it might be stored internally.
00:30:51.680 --> 00:30:55.279
So, in other words, an ontology to be able to do that translation.
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:17.279
So they've they've had to build all of these capabilities just to get to the point where they can then build their application, whether it is something that will allow you to create a uh uh you know a digital model, digital twin of a product at the back end as exists in the field.
00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:22.319
Well, to do that, you have to have field information and you have to have design information.
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:28.960
So basically, you're spanning the entire life cycle there if you're going to properly build a digital twin.
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:36.640
And if you want to be able to solve the inventory problem, you need to be able to know what's meant to go in the product.
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:48.880
So, yes, you need to have an e-bomb, and then you need to have all flavors of the M bombs, and you need to know what's going into your ERP and what's going into your MES system.
00:31:49.039 --> 00:32:00.799
You need to know how to control that flow and you know, recognizing it's maybe better not to have an ERP to MES integration, but to go back to the platform and and do it that way.
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:07.359
So technically, these were the sort of the underlying characteristics.
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.839
And I tried to capture them in the report.
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:13.839
Um, and I'm not I am not an architecture guy.
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:16.960
So I'm more of a what's the problem would be solved guy.
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:25.440
So I'm not going out and saying this is an architecture that has to exist for these to be future platforms.
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:25.839
Right.
00:32:26.079 --> 00:32:31.279
What I'm saying is I think these are the common features of these products.
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:39.920
And I may not have got it perfectly correct, but I think it is directionally correct and maybe 80% correct.
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:42.640
But it is, you know, it is evolving.
00:32:43.119 --> 00:32:43.920
I'm tracking you.
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.599
It's it's about a pattern of problems that they're solving, not necessarily about a pattern of architecture.
00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:59.440
No, I'd actually flip that and say it's the no, you know, I actually agree with you.
00:32:59.519 --> 00:32:59.759
Yeah.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:08.480
I mean, they're they're they they appear to be solving different problems on the surface, although they're having to crack the same nuts in order to be able to do that.
00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:08.960
Right.
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:12.079
So I think, yeah, I think we I think I agree with what you said.
00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:16.720
So I want to pivot from there and talk about okay, where do you think it's headed, right?
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:23.759
So you've you did the research, you've reported that what you saw as sort of common threads and also what's different about them.
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:31.359
Like you said, they're each sort of attacking a different specific business problem so they can make money, but they are looking at the problem in new similar ways.
00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:34.160
Where does that all go from here?
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:38.079
I mean, and I know I'm asking for conjecture at this point, Doug, but I mean, what do you see?
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:48.400
Well, you know, that's that's that that is the that is a that's the that's the challenge.
00:33:48.720 --> 00:33:51.440
So they're all small companies.
00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:55.680
If I added them all together, it would still be a small company.
00:33:55.759 --> 00:33:56.079
Right.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:56.720
Yeah.
00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:05.279
Um so how do they go from being small companies to being mid-sized companies to being large companies?
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:09.280
Well, customer adoption is is the answer.
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:13.119
And how do they achieve customer adoption?
00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:39.840
Well, the customers have got to find out about them, but that's a challenge because they're small companies and they got small marketing budgets, and they're fighting against the big three who are daily, hourly pumping out stuff, saying all problems have been solved, just spend more money with us, and everything everything that you need will be provided.
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:46.159
So they're fighting against that, and they're fighting against decades of conditioning.
00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:59.039
So for example, you could have started your career 25 years ago, and somebody else starting their career today could be using the same tool set.
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:00.320
Yeah.
00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:08.960
So you join today as a you know, you graduate, and it's like, oh, my dad was using these tools.
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:15.599
Um it's like it's really hard to fight against that.
00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:26.960
It's like, you know, it's like the walking in and saying, hey, you know, I'm I'm working in this building and there are brick walls and windows and so on, you know, and and there's team center on on my desktop.
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:30.559
It's just it's just another day at the office to people.
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:32.400
Why would you want to change it?
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:34.960
Uh yeah, well, we can't do that in Team Center.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:43.119
So what you do is you extract that bill of materials and you send it to Dave down in the planning office, and he knows what to do with it.
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:44.000
Oh, great.
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:45.920
Okay, I know how to do my job now.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:46.400
That's good.
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:52.079
So I designed this bit, extract the bomb, send it to Dave, all done, I can get on with something else.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:53.360
I love my work.
00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:58.480
Nobody getting up in the morning and saying, I've got to get rid of Team Center.
00:35:58.639 --> 00:36:00.880
I've got to find something better.
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:07.840
And by the time they get to the level of seniority where they could do something about it, they've got other problems to manage.
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:14.800
They've got personnel problems, they've got budget problems, they've got product problems and customer problems and all that kind of thing.
00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:18.719
And, you know, replace Team Center, that's the last thing I want to do.
00:36:19.039 --> 00:36:19.679
Right.
00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:29.280
So, number one, you know, how do how do the how do these little companies, you know, wave their flags and make their flags big enough that people can see them?
00:36:29.519 --> 00:36:44.239
And number two, even if you spend, even if you recognize that your existing environment is broken and you can see that there are solutions out there that could do a better job, how are you going to hang your head on that?
00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:47.199
Are you going to put your career on the line to do that?
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:47.760
Yeah.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:58.320
The first one you mentioned reminds me of something in a conversation we had with Monica Schniker a while ago, talking about the changes in the market of how software comes to market, right?
00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:04.800
And we were talking about changes with SaaS and what that has done to the reseller market and that that whole space.
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:06.719
And you know, that's how people used to find things.
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:13.440
25 years ago, it was you had a reseller and you knew them and you had those relationships, and they would bring ideas and tools to the table.
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:15.599
And that's not the same now, right?
00:37:16.239 --> 00:37:24.880
So it's to your point, the problem of how do people find these small companies who are solving problems that they may not fully recognize yet either.
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:25.519
Yeah.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:34.480
And if you look at how the you know, the PDM PLM industry got established, well, you know, there were resellers back in the early days.
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:42.400
Uh, but it was, you know, the the consultancies, you know, the Deloitte's, the Accenture, and so on.
00:37:42.639 --> 00:38:08.239
And, you know, I can remember at um at Sherpa in the 90s partnering with these guys, and they they were all over it because this was consulting revenue for them, because they had customers with big cat environments that wanted to wanted to learn about PDM, PLM, whatever, and wanted to implement it, and they didn't know how to do it, and they didn't know who the who the vendors were.
00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:12.000
I mean, I was doing it myself in the early days when I was at Cooperson Librand.
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:25.679
And so it was, it was a lot of very strong synergy between the consulting community and the um, you know, the vendor community back then to basically create and expand the market.
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:53.599
It was wonderful, everyone benefited, but it's kind of flipped the other way now, where the big consultancies, and we have to recognize that the you know the consulting world has changed dramatically, and that you know the Indian, you know, what where the Indian outsourcers are now, you know, the consulting organizations of today, you know, so that the the tattoos, tattoos and the emphasis is are as every bit as credible as you know, Accenture and Delight now.
00:38:54.159 --> 00:39:14.079
Um, but they are so bedded into the existing industry model that you know are they gonna be the ones that will go and upset the ARCART and you know start promoting these little vendors that are just gonna annoy the you know their contacts at Siemens and Dassault?
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:15.760
Well, you know, why take the risk?
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:22.159
Why go and upset the Apple Cart for you know a few tiny few bucks of extra revenue?
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:28.639
So the question is, you know, it's like how how do these little companies become known and how do they become credible?
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:31.119
And I do not know the answer to that.
00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:50.880
I can't see I can't see a good past example of how that happens, of where a you know, a big, well-established, deep-rooted market and set of vendors has been eroded over time by uh a new set of vendors.
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:51.840
I I don't know.
00:39:52.079 --> 00:40:07.519
And so my my big concern uh my the thing that I could think uh that could just stop all this in it track in its tracks is these small companies either go out of business or they get acquired.
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:14.159
Either way, you know, the things that they're trying to do disappear, nothing happens.
00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:19.360
Well, the other approach is just to find that niche market where they can build some customer momentum, right?
00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:33.920
I mean, that's you know, maybe it's in a specific industry or they're solving a very specific industrial, you know, complex machinery thing, or you know, wherever they can fit and grow like um, you know, some like customers where you know they can build some of that expertise.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:34.960
I've seen that work.
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:37.280
Um, it's really hard to take on the big ones, though.
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:40.000
And in any industry, you're gonna always gonna have that.
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:40.320
Yeah.
00:40:40.480 --> 00:40:56.320
So now if if if you look at their successes, they are they are at the same time capturing, you know, let's say smaller companies, like a lot of you know, companies in space, a lot of new companies that are building some of the upstarts.
00:40:56.880 --> 00:41:00.800
I mean, the space space industry is it's not just SpaceX.
00:41:01.119 --> 00:41:02.400
There's lots of little companies doing that.
00:41:02.559 --> 00:41:04.639
Oh, there's a lot of little new new startups, yes.
00:41:04.880 --> 00:41:09.840
And so there, I I see these PHE vendors addressing that space.
00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:20.239
So companies that are more perhaps more open-minded and are very system-centric in the products that they're building and are looking for new systems.
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:26.960
And and right, you know, for them, making a few buying out a few metal parts is is is trivial to what they're trying to do.
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:27.440
Sure.
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:35.840
They're also being successful in being bolt-ons in established legacy PLM environments.
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:37.199
That's the other side.
00:41:37.440 --> 00:41:37.679
Exactly.
00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:39.679
Find a little place they can fit.
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:46.800
So yes, so you know, so there is an opportunity for them to do a sort of you know, land and expand.
00:41:47.519 --> 00:42:05.840
And maybe that's how it goes, that it's a combination of okay, we get these companies in in small but important and growing industries, and we grab them from the early days, and at the same time, we do a land and expand in the big companies.
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:07.920
It could be a combination of the two.
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:15.840
I mean, that's probably if it if this thing is going to work out successfully, uh, that's probably how it works.
00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:16.159
Yeah.
00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:19.039
But I would say there's there's no guarantees at this stage.
00:42:19.360 --> 00:42:19.519
Yeah.
00:42:19.679 --> 00:42:23.119
Well, in any case, they all have to build relationships with key clients.
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:36.800
And it's hard to imagine there's a lot of manufacturers out there who don't have some relationship out there somewhere with some sort of cat or some sort of some some sort of application in this PLM space, whether it's PLM or something else.
00:42:36.960 --> 00:42:37.119
Yeah.
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:43.199
I'm gonna have to throw in the red flag, gentlemen, because we have again talked our way right through the time.
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:45.760
And uh and that's not hard to do when we have fun.
00:42:46.159 --> 00:42:47.920
Yeah, we have a propensity for doing that.
00:42:48.559 --> 00:42:50.880
I'm gonna throw it at Jonathan for the summary.
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:51.519
Yeah.
00:42:51.679 --> 00:42:53.280
So this was great, Doug.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:43:04.239
I mean, I think we set it up last time in uh the other episode talking about history and where we came from that really gets to why this is coming up and why you were looking at it.
00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:08.239
So we started with why FPHE is different from PLM, right?
00:43:08.400 --> 00:43:10.000
What even motivated you to look at this?
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:12.400
And boy, you had a lot of good answers there, right?
00:43:12.559 --> 00:43:17.599
The world's different from when PDM was invented, and PLM doesn't seem to be solving the problem.
00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:21.679
It's an evolution of PDM, and therefore it's not the right tool for the job.
00:43:21.920 --> 00:43:23.599
So I think that's interesting.
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:26.000
You also talked about it fitting business models, right?
00:43:26.079 --> 00:43:31.199
So not just capability-wise, but does it fit the way business is done, work is done today?
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:33.760
And still some people, yes, but it's evolving away from it.
00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:35.199
So maybe there's not a match.
00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:44.400
So there's this new paradigm also related to what our products look like today, being electromechanical with code, embedded software, those kinds of things.
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:48.480
That means that you don't, you're not starting with MCAD, you're starting with systems.
00:43:48.639 --> 00:43:52.000
And those aren't problems that have been solved by PLM typically.
00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:59.840
So I think another thing that that motivated um you to say, look, this is different is the frustration and disappointment with kind of where things are.
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:00.239
Right.
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:03.599
You look back on your career and said, this isn't where I thought we would be.
00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:05.280
There's got to be something different.
00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:05.599
Right.
00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:11.360
And I think another piece I heard you say was we were also just solving product development.
00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:13.599
We weren't solving product lifecycle.
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:15.920
So there's something that we're missing here.
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:16.400
Okay.
00:44:16.559 --> 00:44:19.519
So that pushed us into, well, tell us what's different.
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:21.920
What do you see as distinct between these two?
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:28.719
Not that the FPHE category name is magic and that you're you're married to it, but you're just trying to highlight two camps.
00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:30.320
Okay, so what's different about those?
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:35.199
So I captured a couple of characteristics that you said, but then as we kept talking, you added a few more.
00:44:35.280 --> 00:44:36.400
So here's what I heard.
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:42.400
One, these folks in this category that you're talking about are independent of MCAT, really independent of anything.
00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:45.760
It's about connecting product data in general.
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:52.320
Then there's they're not just focused on the development piece of products, but really more of the life cycle.
00:44:52.400 --> 00:44:54.800
So not just around product development, but more than that.
00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:04.719
I think you named a couple of other things, is that they at their core have to be some kind of platform to integrate because of that ability to be independent of anything.
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:11.679
And that also you mentioned a flexible data model with some sort of ontology that's going to let them relate to all these different sources.
00:45:11.840 --> 00:45:16.400
So those are things I heard about the characteristics, what you saw as being in common here.
00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:19.679
Now, I wanted to press a little bit on so what's the evidence?
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:22.079
Why do we know there's really a shift happening here?
00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.559
And some of the answers you had there, right?
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:30.079
People should know if they look inside their own organization, is the current system working or not working?
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:34.719
If you're working outside of the system, it's probably a sign that it's not working the way you need it to.
00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:41.360
And where things are broken, if you see evidence of people solving those problems differently, okay, that's a sign, right?
00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:43.920
To you, that's a sign of we're we're headed somewhere.
00:45:44.239 --> 00:45:53.519
And um the other piece you added, which I thought was so interesting, is it wasn't like you went out and found a bunch of inventors, startups, people in their garage just making software.
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:56.960
It's no, I went and looked at folks who've been in business for five years.
00:45:57.119 --> 00:45:58.320
They have a revenue stream.
00:45:58.480 --> 00:46:01.280
There's really something to it, it's not just an idea.
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:03.280
So I thought that was it was a good take.
00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:04.880
Now, Julianne, you pressed on.
00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:06.400
All right, so what are some examples, right?
00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:08.159
And Doug, you named ones from the report.
00:46:08.239 --> 00:46:15.119
I'll just highlight them here: Cognix, Dallas, EXP, Flow Engineering, Intercax, Makersite, Spread, Violet Labs.
00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:18.320
They're probably more out there, but those are ones from the report.
00:46:18.480 --> 00:46:23.360
And you mentioned they are not, you're not gonna look at them and say, oh, they're all doing the same thing.
00:46:23.519 --> 00:46:24.639
They're not, right?
00:46:24.880 --> 00:46:29.039
Under the hood, when you did the research, that's how you came up with the common characteristics.
00:46:29.199 --> 00:46:33.039
But these folks are all doing different things in different markets because they've got to make money, right?
00:46:33.119 --> 00:46:42.320
So they're solving one problem, but I think part of your hypothesis is they're set to explore different problems in this unique way that makes the category.
00:46:42.480 --> 00:47:02.000
So lastly, when we talked about where is this all headed, I, you know, I wish it was positive and roses, but I think you're you're being fair and pragmatic by saying, I don't know, I don't know quite where it's headed, because there's a challenge for these folks to find their market, to find the people who need them, because not everybody is recognizing the problems that they're facing yet.
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:12.000
And it's not the same world that we had 25 years ago when people saw the problem, they went out looking to solve it, they maybe had a reseller network or a consulting network.
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:13.519
It the world's just different.
00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:20.639
So it's trickier for these companies to be found, to grow the revenue, to evolve into what you think might be coming.
00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:22.320
So we don't know, right?
00:47:22.480 --> 00:47:26.239
But that's some of what we see happening in the uh the future.
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:31.679
Last thing I'll mention there is you noted land and expand might be how this proceeds, right?
00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:43.920
That some of these folks solve that point problem, but then as they get into an organization and people recognize those characteristics you named, that it starts to expand around some of the legacy solutions and displace it bit by bit.
00:47:44.079 --> 00:47:45.519
So that's what I heard.
00:47:45.679 --> 00:47:46.719
What did I miss, Doug?
00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:50.639
Or what would you add on top of that for people to understand about what you're getting at here?
00:47:50.960 --> 00:47:53.039
No, that's that was perfect summation.
00:47:53.599 --> 00:47:56.960
I'm sitting here thinking, my goodness, you should have been alarmed, Jonathan.
00:47:57.039 --> 00:47:57.920
I can see you.
00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:01.440
I can see you just summing up for the defense.
00:48:01.519 --> 00:48:03.760
And it's like you're right.
00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:05.039
He's innocent.
00:48:07.920 --> 00:48:10.719
Or in this case, PLM is guilty, guilty as charged.
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:13.519
No, that that was great.
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:15.440
Very well, very well summarized.
00:48:15.519 --> 00:48:15.760
Thank you.
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:16.320
Yes, good.
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:20.559
Well, then thank you so much, Doug, for your time today and joining us back on the podcast.
00:48:20.639 --> 00:48:21.760
It was great to have you on.
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:22.639
Absolutely.
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:23.519
It was good stuff.
00:48:23.679 --> 00:48:24.000
Thank you.
00:48:24.079 --> 00:48:24.719
I enjoyed it.
00:48:25.039 --> 00:48:26.800
Yeah, and thanks, Jonathan, as always.
00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:28.639
It's always fun to have these conversations.
00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:31.679
So, with that, everybody, we hope you enjoyed the conversation today.
00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:36.639
Uh, if you got anything out of this, please leave us a comment, give us a like, send us some feedback on the show.
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:42.079
If you have any questions for Doug on his report, uh just shoot, uh, give us a message or you can get in touch with Doug.
00:48:42.159 --> 00:48:43.360
He is on LinkedIn.
00:48:43.519 --> 00:48:46.480
Uh, we'll put his profile link in the notes.
00:48:46.639 --> 00:48:50.800
Um, and with that, we're always up for more questions or ideas for future episodes.
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:52.400
And uh, we hope you tune in.
00:48:52.559 --> 00:48:54.880
So, with that, we hope you have a great day.
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:57.199
And until next time, stay sharp.
00:48:57.519 --> 00:48:58.719
Thanks, everybody.
00:48:58.960 --> 00:48:59.920
Thank you.
00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:02.400
So that's a wrap.
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:04.639
Doug's honest about where this leaves us.
00:49:04.800 --> 00:49:12.559
He shared eight companies, all small, solving different pieces of the same underlying problem, and no guarantee that any of them will survive long enough to matter.
00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:15.280
But his real argument isn't about picking a winner.
00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:21.119
It's about the tools that running most engineering organizations today were built for a world that doesn't really exist anymore.
00:49:21.519 --> 00:49:23.920
Pretending to be otherwise is an actual risk.
00:49:24.079 --> 00:49:25.760
So it gave us a lot to think about.
00:49:25.920 --> 00:49:28.079
We welcome your ideas, thoughts, and comments on this.
00:49:28.239 --> 00:49:30.159
If you got something out of it, please let us know.
00:49:30.320 --> 00:49:32.320
Give us a like or a comment.
00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:39.360
And if there's a topic you'd like us to cover or guests you also want to hear from, please send us a note at podcast at raiseleaf.com.
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:40.719
We'd love to hear from you.
00:49:40.880 --> 00:49:44.239
This podcast is for you, so let's make it better together.
00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:45.920
Thanks for staying sharp with us.
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:47.280
See you next time.
